2315700 - Online Report Designer (ORD) - Implementation tips & tricks from Support

This article has been put together by Cloud Product Support to provide Customers and Partners some Tips & Tricks to the use of Online Report designer related features and tools during implementations. 
The aim is to centralize some of the more frequently encountered Implementation issues and to give some tips and tricks to avoid any unnessecary delays to an Implementation.

Please note that this article (and sub-articles) are frequently reviewed and updated by Product Support over time, based on our experiences for new and existing customers. 
Please do utilize the information provided to ensure that you troubleshoot the issues and/or blocks you are encountering first, before opening a Support case as a lot of the issues you may encounter already have solutions. 
You can search for more solutions here

Implementation Support Knowledge & Tips: Things to consider Prerequisite and limitation

BizX Sources (Live data): Per default, ORD will include the same schema available as Adhoc. If you have enable Adhoc subdomain schema in provisioning, you should see this schema in "Detailed Reporting" to design your query. The same permissions applied as Adhoc so you should verify if your instance has adhoc set-up correctly.

LMS integration: Learning product (LMS) is a separate product and can be integrated once ORD implemented. Make sure you follow the implementation guide related to LMS section, This is not integrated per default.

Employee Central product: Per default, Employee Central product has enable in Adhoc Job information (as of date) and other subdomain schema. However, be aware for Employee Central you should consider Advanced Reporting (ODS/REALMS) as reporting solution. Advanced Reporting is a separate implementation not part of ORD.

WFA products:

• If you have purchase WFA product you and you do want to link this instance to your HCM Cloud instance, you need to wait for Implementation Service team to deliver you the WFA identifier that will be need during the ORD implementation. Be aware you can only link your WFA instance which is located on the same stack or datacentre.
• For WFA, Our IS team provide also a preview environement instance which is a Q&A environement to develop new metrics or refresh your data. This instance cannot be link to any HCM Cloud instance and is not on a "Preview" stack and is link directly to your PROD WFA environement in back-end. Do not try to achieve it, this is technically impossible. However, if you want a preview instance for test purpose, you need to contact your Sales departement or PS contact to get an additionnal WFA instance on TEST or Preview datacentre.

Integration with 3rd party products *MUST READ*: The SuccessFactors reporting tools should be used ONLY for generating human readable content. It is not intended nor designed to be used as a tool for data extraction to external systems. A number of tools have been developed to allow customers to extract data from several SuccessFactors systems. These tools allow for full and delta extracts that can be performed on an on-going basis for integration into external systems. Further details on Reporting and Integration Comparison guide.

PAYROLL system: You should use our integration product and review our SAP HELP portal documentation available and use our integration tools. Further details on Employee Central Payroll guide

AKAMAI - Reverse Proxy: ORD is compatible with AKAMAI and reverse proxy. You must be aware if AKAMAI is enable then Reverse proxy set-up in your instance, Only user connected using AKAMAI will have access to ORD. See Guide section to know how to configure your instance for reverse proxy / AKAMAI.

Single Sign ON / Redirection URL  Online Report Designer use internal Single Sign On to link your HCM cloud instance to your ORD instance. It's important that you configure your network to allow "analytics" page but also to make sure you use correct redirection url in your SSO Setting (Provisioning) to avoid to get wrong redirection (cause by timeout). Few SSO internal missconfiguration redirecting TEST in PROD instance could happen when you have set-up a dynamic redirection address (like .aspx) uncorrectly. You need to reach your local IT departement owner of this .aspx page to rectify it if this happen or make sure you have set-up different redirection and timeout address in SSO (provisioning) to prevent this. This is not a ORD issue and could happen with any successfactors product using Single Sign On. Further details on SuccessFactors SAML2 Single Sign-On guide.

Plan to change your Intance BizX ID in Provisioning: Instance ID is the unique identifier for SSO connection between HCM CLOUD and ORD. If you plan to change your instance ID, you should consider to change only your instance "NAME" otherwise your current ORD implementation will need to be lost and need to be reconfigured from scratch with all back-end user configuration lost. You should avoid this or configure ORD before to implement it. Please Reach SuccessFactors if you plan to make such changes. This must be discussed in advanced.

Preview HCM datacenter stack: you can only link instances or create a new ORD instances ORD on dedicated WFA stack available. Example: I have a instance on HCM12preview, i cannot link it to PROD environement which is on analytics012.successfactors.com. I can't link neither instances on different datacentres. You should follow exactly the implementation guide available in the guide section.

Implementation Guides

To implement Online Report designer, you must take the last implementation guide and SSO Guide available on our SAP HELP portal.

• Online Report Designer Implementation guide
• SuccessFactors HCM Suite to Analytics Single Sign-On guide

Best Practice

1. 1st : Download the latest Guide SSO and ORD implementation URL. Be aware we have specific address per datacenter.
2. 2nd: Use Notepad to Copy the information before to paste in Provisioning.
3. 3rd : Avoid Space when you Paste the information in provisioning.
4. 4th: Double check before to Save that you have entered the right information.
5. 5th: Enjoy the 3 Best Practice documents in order to implement our ORD product successfully :
1. Provisioning WFA settings and URL Asserssion implementation following SSO and ORD implementation guide.
2. Grant User Analytics access (Admin Centre).
3. Create Default Role in ORD

 VERIFY your implementation:

1. Log in your instance from a user and open Analytics tab
2. Create a new query using Detailed Reporting:
1. Drag and drop Employee Information table from Employee Profile schema
2. Select Option in your query (on top)
3. Select People Scope
4. Set the people scope with the option "Other"
5. Save 

Below is a list of KBAs which can help you to find the answer to your questions:

1. 2291236 Online Report Designer (ORD) - Guide / Training / Documentation / Implementation Request / Enhancement Request / SAP Support
2. 2259035 How to enable the Analytics Tab to access Online Report Designer (ORD)
3. 2279026 Employee Central Advanced Reporting Implementation Tips & Tricks from Support
4. 2315083  LOD-SF-WFA  Instance Refresh for Reporting and Analytics product (WFA / ORD / ODS ) - What is included or need to be requested? Q&A 
5. 2276691 Advanced Reporting Data is Out of Synch with Employee Central Data
6. 2445911 Online Report Designer (ORD) Troubleshooting - Guided Answer
7. 2289129 Online Report Designer: What do I need to know when requesting an upgrade to the Advanced Reporting new user interface (Realms)
8. 2151880 Online Report Designer (ORD) Admin Features
9. 2323418 Advanced Reporting - Others Resources from Support
10. 2276944 Online Report Designer - tool access resctriction
11. 2315132 Analytics and Reporting Implementation tips & tricks from Support
12. 2199772 Accessing LMS Learning Schemas in Online Report Designer
13. 2343512 All Guides & General information for Analytics and Reporting
14. 2417429 How to check if Online Report Designer (ORD) is Enabled for the Instance
15. 2276460  LOD-SF-ANA  ORD Online Report Designer - Where is available LMS Learning schema / data and People Scope behaviour 
16. 2317376  LOD-SF-ANA  Reporting vs Integration - Business need to integrate SuccessFactors data with a third party product ? Consideration - FAQ 

KBA , LOD-SF-ANA-ORD , Online Report Designer , How To